Target Information

[LegalTender]

Dunno, I called Silver Spring at 8:30 and gave the girl the DCPI (she even asked for it), she put me on hold for a bit and then said they didn't have any. I asked her if that meant that they didn't even have any in the back, and she said "available just means that we carry it, not that we have it in stock..." Yeah right... And no more availability is showing for Greenbelt or PG... haha

I got one from that store this morning.

Before work I drove to the Silver Spring Target at 7:00am. There was only one person waiting in line, a fellow MacRumors forum reader. We had nice discussions while we waited until the store opened. Eventually one other MacRumors forum reader showed up, and the three of us went to electronics when the store opened at 8.

There were no iPad 2s in the display case. We told the manager that we were there for iPad 2 and he quickly said they were sold out. Before we even had to explain the DCPI situation, a store worker told him that they got them overnight. We waited a few minutes while the manager went back and brought out four iPads. We each got our preferred model.

The key is not to call the store and just go before the store opens. The overnight crew who unloads the trucks usually scans the shipments, thus updating the online inventory. If it says 'Available' before the store opens then it's there. I'm assuming there is a lapse between the time when the inventory is actually depleted to when it shows up as out of stock.

 

[mr jnvii]

Yea the Target by me still says 32GB Black, but they ran out an hour ago.

Gotta get there when it opens. I didn't have the car this morning, so I arrived too late. They didn't have the model I wanted.

RAAAAAGGGGEEEE. Hopefully, tomorrow the Target 3 miles from me will have something since they haven't had anything for awhile. They're due!

 

[DCiLover]

I work near the PG Plaza Target and just went over there for coffee, stopped by electronics, asked about their iPad stock, they had 2 this morning but sold them before 9.

So what we have learned is that their inventory is spot on, but you must get there early (ideally when they open) or get lucky and also have all your info and make sure they check thoroughly.

Never would have thought I'd grab one from Target though, MacRumors is amazing Been lurking here for years but had to register to post about this particular triumph.

 

[gottherim4]

Thanks!

Thank you everyone here who provided the method for getting target inventory and also the folks for the links. I was able to find a 32gb wifi black (preferred the 16gb) in stock at the target near me (manassas). I went and there was one in the case at 8:10am. The lady who helped me knew how hard they are to find, she was smiling and laughing when I told her how much I have been searching. Btw, they also had a few smart covers in the case too, so it seems target has started getting those.

 

[Yebot]

Hey guys, just joined the forum since I decided I had to have one of these yesterday. I actually work overnight at a Target in New York but I'm just as in the dark about shipping as everyone else. We get Electronics shipped to us every night basically in with the regular truck but I have never seen an apple product in one of our regular trucks so I'm not sure when we actually get those shipments in. I do have a question for some of you guys since I've never tried to acquire an apple product while quantities are scarce. I'm pretty much going to stalk my job for the next week or two so that I can hopefully grab one before I leave work in the morning but do you recommend me ordering online in the meantime? I'm not crazy about waiting 5 weeks or camping out with the scalpers in Manhattan but I really want this thing.

You could order one at store.apple.com. It will won't ship for 4-5 weeks according to Apple. But at least you'll have an order to fall back on. In the meantime, try to scoop one up at Target. Then you can cancel your online order if you get one. Apple online store won't charge your CC until it ships.

 

[dennisjs]

I called this morning to a Target and the woman said even though it says available that just means they carry it, not that they have it in stock and i'm not yet ready to drive half an hour on a hunch because it means having to brave the beltway... hopefully this will all calm down by next thursday... in the meantime, happy st. paddy's day!

The woman is incorrect. If they have inventory it is reflected through the links given on page 8 of this thread.

Limited Availability= ONE (1) in stock.
Available= Two (2) or more in stock.

This has been proven by the anecdotal evidence provided in this thread.

Do not call these stores. The associate who you speak to DOES NOT STOCK THE SHELVES. The units are checked in and stocked on the shelves by others... overnight crew in most cases. The inventory seems to be scanned in between 11PM and 4AM but in one case it was done as late as 10:30AM the next morning.

Be at the front door at 8AM (opening) once you have established that a store shows with inventory.

PAGE 8 of this thread gives the inventory links you need in order to ascertain the inventory status of your local stores.

 

[n8sco]

You could order one at store.apple.com. It will won't ship for 4-5 weeks according to Apple. But at least you'll have an order to fall back on. In the meantime, try to scoop one up at Target. Then you can cancel your online order if you get one. Apple online store won't charge your CC until it ships.

Thanks. Is that policy the same with debit? The reason I ask is that an apple rep said something about them putting a hold on the amount that the product costs me until it actually ships when they would then take it out. It probably wouldn't be a problem but my student loans and credit card payments come out of my bank account automatically and I would hate to overdraft for no reason if there's a hold on those funds. Also the rep said that it was her experience that products would often ship/ arrive earlier than stated when they were on back order. Has anyone found that to be true?

 

[gankit]

@Dennis and LegalTender,

Dang. Looks like I'll be waking up early tomorrow or Saturday, then. I checked online around 12 or 1 and it showed availability, so at least I'll know beforehand. Thanks for anecdotally proving what I had pretty much known was true

 

[n8sco]

The woman is incorrect. If they have inventory it is reflected through the links given on page 8 of this thread.

Limited Availability= ONE (1) in stock.
Available= Two (2) or more in stock.

This has been proven by the anecdotal evidence provided in this thread.

Do not call these stores. The associate who you speak to DOES NOT STOCK THE SHELVES. The units are checked in and stocked on the shelves by others... overnight crew in most cases. The inventory seems to be scanned in between 11PM and 4AM but in one case it was done as late as 10:30AM the next morning.

Be at the front door at 8AM (opening) once you have established that a store shows with inventory.

PAGE 8 of this thread gives the inventory links you need in order to ascertain the inventory status of your local stores.

This is true. The person you speak to if you call the operator is not even on the floor. Unless you ask to be put through to electronics specifically you're talking to the secretary in the employee office. Even if you do actually speak to someone in the electronics department I don't believe apple products are delivered overnight. I've worked at this Target since November and unloaded a bunch of trucks and not once have I ever seen an apple product in one. I have seen virtually every other brand/ electronics product we carry in store but nothing made by apple. The overnight trucks that we unload scan and stock come to our store just before 10PM and then we unload and scan them into inventory immediately. This time of the year we usually only get one truck per night meaning that the item should have actually been scanned into inventory before midnight as they are scanned as soon as they pass the scanner on the assembly line about 10 seconds after we take the product out of the truck. That leads me to believe that apple products must be delivered via fed ex or ups during the day. I typically don't leave work until about 7 or 8 in the morning and I have very rarely seen Fed Ex trucks at that hour. I was off yesterday but tonight when I go into work I'm going to talk to my boss and see if I can get some info for everyone as well as hopefully track one down for myself. I hope to be able to share more tomorrow morning.

 

[GameraFan]

i'm still getting nothing from terminal. but then again, i'm not a coder.

I was messing with the script and got it to work using:

echo  "iPad2 Wi-fi Black 32Gb: "; curl -s --data "_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&asin=&dpci=057-10-1831&zipcode=15101&city=&state=" http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/mobile_fiats_results.jsp?_DARGS=/site/en/spot/mobile_fiats.jsp | grep -A 2 strong | sed -e 's/<p><strong>//' -e 's/<\/strong><br\/>//' -e 's/<br \/>//' -e 's/<\/p>//' -e 's/--//' -e 's/^[ \t]*//;s/[ \t]*$//'

To customize this to the model you are searching for:
1) Change the model details after echo (eg iPad2 3g Verizon Black 32Gb)
2) Change the dpci to the model you want (eg 057-10-1837)
3) Edit the zipcode (zipcode=15237)

You could then pipe that info to mail and set up a cron job to have it run at specified times.

 

[212rikanmofo]

GamerFan thanks for this!

 

[Coleman2010]

Thanks. Is that policy the same with debit? The reason I ask is that an apple rep said something about them putting a hold on the amount that the product costs me until it actually ships when they would then take it out. It probably wouldn't be a problem but my student loans and credit card payments come out of my bank account automatically and I would hate to overdraft for no reason if there's a hold on those funds. Also the rep said that it was her experience that products would often ship/ arrive earlier than stated when they were on back order. Has anyone found that to be true?

I used my debit/credit card for an iPad 2 online order and it did not place a hold for the funds. I found an iPad 2 at a target and canceled my online order a few days later. Never was charged.

 

[furcalchick]

I was messing with the script and got it to work using:

echo  "iPad2 Wi-fi Black 32Gb: "; curl -s --data "_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&asin=&dpci=057-10-1831&zipcode=15101&city=&state=" http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/mobile_fiats_results.jsp?_DARGS=/site/en/spot/mobile_fiats.jsp | grep -A 2 strong | sed -e 's/<p><strong>//' -e 's/<\/strong><br\/>//' -e 's/<br \/>//' -e 's/<\/p>//' -e 's/--//' -e 's/^[ \t]*//;s/[ \t]*$//'

To customize this to the model you are searching for:
1) Change the model details after echo (eg iPad2 3g Verizon Black 32Gb)
2) Change the dpci to the model you want (eg 057-10-1837)
3) Edit the zipcode (zipcode=15237)

You could then pipe that info to mail and set up a cron job to have it run at specified times.

thanks! i'll try to get it to work for the two i'm looking for.

 

[ItsGavinC]

The website is not accurate for DC area stores. I went to one and called other. While the website shows availability, there are none in stores. Only saw old iPads.

The system is 100% accurate. What is not accurate is us as humans. Availability does NOT mean it is stocked on the shelf. Availability does NOT mean the person working in electronics has any clue they have them in the back. That person wasn't there when they arrived but somebody was and scanned it into the system!

Read my story from yesterday. They had only old iPads stocked for sale. The associate swore they had none but I told him the system said they did. Sure enough, they had 4 or 5 in the back. They were in the process of stocking the shelves and simply hadn't gotten to electronics yet.

 

[Yebot]

Thanks. Is that policy the same with debit? The reason I ask is that an apple rep said something about them putting a hold on the amount that the product costs me until it actually ships when they would then take it out. It probably wouldn't be a problem but my student loans and credit card payments come out of my bank account automatically and I would hate to overdraft for no reason if there's a hold on those funds. Also the rep said that it was her experience that products would often ship/ arrive earlier than stated when they were on back order. Has anyone found that to be true?

I can't speak to the debit card issue. I can't remember ever using a debit card for anything other than buying itunes music.

There are several Apple pundits, MacRumors included, who claim that Apple conservatively lists its shipping times to better handle distribution -- that they (hopefully) under-promise and over-deliver.

Apple undershot demand this time around. There's really no way to predict shipments over the next few days/weeks. Keep an eye on the "Received your iPad 2 shipping notice? Post here!" thread for clues as to how fulfillment is progressing.

 

[n8sco]

I used my debit/credit card for an iPad 2 online order and it did not place a hold for the funds. I found an iPad 2 at a target and canceled my online order a few days later. Never was charged.

Ok great. Thank you.

 

[dennisjs]

This is true. The person you speak to if you call the operator is not even on the floor. Unless you ask to be put through to electronics specifically you're talking to the secretary in the employee office. Even if you do actually speak to someone in the electronics department I don't believe apple products are delivered overnight. I've worked at this Target since November and unloaded a bunch of trucks and not once have I ever seen an apple product in one. I have seen virtually every other brand/ electronics product we carry in store but nothing made by apple. The overnight trucks that we unload scan and stock come to our store just before 10PM and then we unload and scan them into inventory immediately. This time of the year we usually only get one truck per night meaning that the item should have actually been scanned into inventory before midnight as they are scanned as soon as they pass the scanner on the assembly line about 10 seconds after we take the product out of the truck. That leads me to believe that apple products must be delivered via fed ex or ups during the day. I typically don't leave work until about 7 or 8 in the morning and I have very rarely seen Fed Ex trucks at that hour. I was off yesterday but tonight when I go into work I'm going to talk to my boss and see if I can get some info for everyone as well as hopefully track one down for myself. I hope to be able to share more tomorrow morning.

"
Any information that you can glean from your boss would be greatly appreciated here. All this thread info comes from those who stayed up into the wee hours earlier this week checking inventory (and watching the NOT IN STOCK STATUS CHANGE TO EITHER "AVAILABLE or LIMITED AVAILABILITY" - this DID NOT HAPPEN DURING THE DAY IT HAPPENED BETWEEN 10PM AND 4AM- and in one case at 10:30AM) at their local Target stores via the links on page 8 and then going to those stores the next morning and purchasing a unit and COUNTING what was in the case. There are still many macrumors members who have not been successful in buying an ipad2 so all of the info is important.

 

[Yebot]

What. No one uses iMacros?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/imacros-for-firefox/

VERSION BUILD=7110203 RECORDER=FX
TAB T=1
TAB OPEN
TAB T=2
URL GOTO=http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/mobile_fiats.jsp?title=fiats&asin=&dpci=057-10-1841&storeNumber
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=ACTION:mobile_fiats_results.jsp?_DARGS=/site/en/spot/mobile_fiats.jsp ATTR=ID:zipcode CONTENT=YOURZIPCODE
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:SUBMIT FORM=ACTION:mobile_fiats_results.jsp?_DARGS=/site/en/spot/mobile_fiats.jsp ATTR=VALUE:Go

 

[TonySCV]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

Valencia, CA Target has them this morning. Mobile website is accurate. Picked up a 64GB AT&T black. No line at 8AM. One other person showed up to pick up a 16GB WiFi (not sure what color) while I was there and they took a couple of phone calls.

They were not stocked in the cabinet. They were in the back. The associate who was in electronics was very helpful and went looking for them in the back. It took about 10 minutes but he found them.

FWIW the website showed "Available" for the 64GB black ATT model and still shows the same status after I left.

Good luck!

 

[n8sco]

I can't speak to the debit card issue. I can't remember ever using a debit card for anything other than buying itunes music.

There are several Apple pundits, MacRumors included, who claim that Apple conservatively lists its shipping times to better handle distribution -- that they (hopefully) under-promise and over-deliver.

Apple undershot demand this time around. There's really no way to predict shipments over the next few days/weeks. Keep an eye on the "Received your iPad 2 shipping notice? Post here!" thread for clues as to how fulfillment is progressing.

Thanks! I think I'm going to order today and continue trying to find one nearby in the meantime. I'll keep an eye on that thread as well.

 

[dennisjs]

The system is 100% accurate. What is not accurate is us as humans. Availability does NOT mean it is stocked on the shelf. Availability does NOT mean the person working in electronics has any clue they have them in the back. That person wasn't there when they arrived but somebody was and scanned it into the system!

Read my story from yesterday. They had only old iPads stocked for sale. The associate swore they had none but I told him the system said they did. Sure enough, they had 4 or 5 in the back. They were in the process of stocking the shelves and simply hadn't gotten to electronics yet.

Amen. It would be wise for those who are still on the hunt to read from page 8 of this thread to the end of the thread. There is a plethora of anecdotal information that has been very helpful to many.

 

[dcmetro]

I'm convinced you have to press them to check the stock in the back and provide them the DPCI, based on my experience this morning, as well as many other's experience in this thread, including yours.

Well, tried again based this post. Spent another fruitless hour Store scanner shows they don't even carry the 32GB iPad, let alone have it in stock. Hey checked in back as well and there was nothing. Told me the website is incorrect. Maybe something to do with this location. !

Anyways tried. This is crazy. First time got a little excited abt the iPad. Now I think k should take it easy. Very frustrating.

 

[ansabakhan]

so it says in stock , and some one buys it.. how long does it take to update online ?

 

[NickPC]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

Saw limited availabilty for 32gb White in a Philadelphia, PA suburb this morning, got their 15 mins before opening, walked in and asked the electronics guy, he said they were sold out, looked at the display and saw one locked up underneath, I pointed that out and bought my first iPad

 

[n8sco]

"
Any information that you can glean from your boss would be greatly appreciated here. All this thread info comes from those who stayed up into the wee hours earlier this week checking inventory (and watching the NOT IN STOCK STATUS CHANGE TO EITHER "AVAILABLE or LIMITED AVAILABILITY" - this DID NOT HAPPEN DURING THE DAY IT HAPPENED BETWEEN 10PM AND 4AM- and in one case at 10:30AM) at their local Target stores via the links on page 8 and then going to those stores the next morning and purchasing a unit and COUNTING what was in the case. There are still many macrumors members who have not been successful in buying an ipad2 so all of the info is important.

That's interesting, it could be that the stores are getting the delivery earlier in the day and leaving them for the overnight team members to do. At our store we have a separate stock room for new electronics releases that has its own outside entrance in the front. I've never really thought to ask why or cared about it before but it's possible that new items are delivered by UPS or Fed Ex there. I have a friend who works in the electronics department frequently so if he's working tonight I'll pick his brain as well. That time frame actually fits as I know there are a few stores here on Long Island where overnight hours are 4 AM to Noon rather than the typical 10-6. I should be able to see if we have any in stock on my break tonight but it seems like the deliveries are being made at some point during the day and then not actually entered into our system until the overnight staff arrives. It's also worth noting that although in most stores the truck unload starts at 10, people who work in specific departments such as electronics are either performing another task such as helping with the unload or working in the storage area or do not begin work until 11 when we're allowed to bring the pallets out onto the floor for them to stock. This is all actually quite fascinating and I'll try to pin down some answers for everyone.